Suquamish Tribe’s Toolkit for Businesses

In response to the Suquamish Tribal Council’s facial covering policy (Resolution # 2020-104) and overall COVID–19 response, the Suquamish Tribe’s Emergency Operations Center would like to assist our Port Madison Indian Reservation businesses during this global public health emergency.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the social and economic vitality of our local community. But we can lessen these impacts and recover from this public health pandemic when business owners like yourself take steps to reduce your risk and take steps now to recover. Working collaboratively with employees, the public, and local government, businesses can help strengthen both public health and community response in a manner that protects us all.

To support this effort, the Suquamish Tribe’s Office of Emergency Management has compiled this tool kit of resources with links to useful tools that are drawn from the following authoritative sources:

Suquamish Tribal Government

Main Website

Face masks now required in public spaces on Reservation

Downloadable PDF of this tool kit

 

Kitsap Health District               

Main Website

The Role of Employers in Effective Contact Tracing

Kitsap County COVID-19 Risk Assessment Dashboard

 

Kitsap County

Main Website

Kitsap County Pathway to Recovery Playbook

 

Washington State Department of Health

Main Website

Business Information for Administrators and Employees

Food Workers and Establishments Guidance on COVID-19

Guidance for Daily COVID-19 Screening of Staff and Visitors

Checklist for Businesses with Suspected or Confirmed Cases of COVID-19

Guidelines for Grocery Stores

Guidelines for Grocery and Food Stores

Guidelines for Restaurants

Food Pantries Phase 2 Guidelines

Food Worker Employee Health & Decision Strategies

Safe Cleaning and Disinfection Guidance for Public Space

Posters

After You Are Done with Work

Be a Germ Buster. . .Wash Your Hands

Keep Them Clean

COVID-19 – General Information

COVID-19 Symptoms Poster

 

Washington State Coronavirus Response

Main Website

Safe Start: Business Guidance, County Status and What’s Open

Overview of COVID-19 Statewide Face Covering Requirements

FAQ for Businesses

Workplace safety guidance

Department of Labor Guidance on Preparing Workplaces for COVID-19

Posters

Please wear a mask

Retail stores: general

“What does six feet look like?”

“We offer delivery”

“We offer pickup”

Product Limit sign 

Customer Capacity Limit sign 

Help keep Grocery store staff and customers safe

Workplace Safety

COVID-19 Phases 1 and 2 Workplace Safety and Health Requirements

Janitorial Safety Tip Sheet

 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)     

Main Website

Resuming Business TOOLKIT

Considerations for Restaurants and Bars

Planning Guides & Checklists

Get Your Workplace Ready for Pandemic Flu

Get Your Mass Gatherings Ready for Pandemic Flu

Pandemic Flu Checklist: Workplace Administrators

Pandemic Flu Checklist: Event Planners

Posters

Slow the Spread of Germs

Don’t Spread Germs at Work (Employers)

Don’t Spread Germs at Work

Stay Home if You’re Sick (Employers)

Stay Home if You’re Sick

 

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

Main website

COVID-19 Best Practice Information: Economic Recovery

FEMA Recovery & Economic Support

Public Assistance Disaster-Specific Guidance – COVID-19 Declarations

Face masks now required in public spaces on Reservation

The Suquamish Tribal Council approved a new resolution requiring a face covering in all public spaces on Port Madison Indian Reservation where physical distancing cannot be maintained.
This applies to areas including, but not limited to:
• Inside any Tribal-owned buildings, including any Tribal business, that are open to the public.
• Inside all other businesses open to the public.
• In healthcare settings, including Human Services Department, Wellness Department, and Health Benefits.
• While in or on a Tribal Government-owned boat with more than one occupant.
• While operating a Tribal Government-owned vehicle with more than one person.
• In outdoor public areas, including Tribal-owned and/or operated parks, trails, streets, sidewalks, lines for entry, exit, or service, and recreation areas, when a distance of at least six feet cannot be maintained from any non-household member.
This policy does not apply to children under five years old, although children two- to four-years-old are strongly encouraged to wear face coverings in public when they are unable to maintain a six-foot distance from non-household members. Anyone with a medical or mental health condition or disability that prevents them from wearing a mask is also exempt.
Face covering are not required in your own home, and – provided you can maintain a six-foot distance from others – while seated at a restaurant, while engaged in indoor or outdoor exercise activities, while in outdoor areas, among a few other specific exemptions.

Online Forum: Covid Q&A

In this online townhall, Suquamish Tribe Treasurer Robin Little Wing Sigo hosts a special Q&A forum with the Tribe’s community health nurse Barbara Hoffman and Dr. Lisa Pratt, from the Wellness Center.

 

 

Suquamish Shows Up

As protests sweep the U.S., Suquamish Tribal Council calls for justice for Stonechild Chiefstick and other victims of police violence

Suquamish Tribal Council members, elders, and youth joined hundreds who stood with signs reading “Black Lives Matter” and “Native Lives Matter” along Highway 305 in Poulsbo on June 2. Emotions were raw because of the recent killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Manny Ellis, and others, and because here in Kitsap County, prosecutors recently announced there would be no charges against Officer Craig Keller, the Poulsbo police officer who shot and killed Stonechild Chiefstick on July 3, 2019.

The protest was peaceful, passionate, and well attended with many drivers honking in support.

But when three Tribal Elders left the protest and went to downtown Poulsbo to have a quiet dinner, they encountered two men carrying military assault rifles patrolling an empty Front Street. The contrast between the peaceful protest on Highway 305 and the intimidating armed presence in downtown Poulsbo was striking.

Calls to a Poulsbo city council member revealed that the Poulsbo police knew there were armed individuals at several locations in town, and that, with the exception of one conversation with one of them, the police chose to do nothing – not question them, nor ask for identification and their purpose in being on the street near the protest. There was no check for warrants or criminal records or for extremist affiliations or for statements advocating violence. It was a stunning contrast to the treatment of Stonechild Chiefstick, who walked alone in Poulsbo’s waterfront park on July 3, was reported to police for acting strangely, and then shot and killed by Officer Keller.

The Second Amendment does not trump the First Amendment right to free expression and assembly, nor is open carry allowed in Washington State when used to intimidate others or when it creates alarm for the safety of others (RCW 9.14.270).

A Long History of Racism

This experience with an armed patrol in Poulsbo was a first for these Elders, but it was not the first time members of our community have experienced hostility and racial profiling in Poulsbo and North Kitsap County. Community members and visitors with darker skin report being followed in stores, bullied in local schools, and subjected to hostile comments on the street. Traffic signs leading into the reservation were riddled with bullet holes until they were replaced just recently. Anti-Indian graffiti was a constant reminder of the hostility aimed at Native people growing up in North Kitsap.

While the forms of racism have changed over the decades, it has never fully ceased.

The killing of George Floyd has lifted the veil on the brutality experienced by Black people across the nation. But the only thing that is new is the widespread use of phone cameras to document the brutality. African Americans, Native Americans, and other people of color have been subjected to white supremacist violence since European settlers first arrived on these shores bringing people captured and enslaved in Africa.

When settlers first arrived in 1851, Chief Seattle and his people greeted them and helped them during their first difficult winters here on the Salish Sea. Chief Seattle believed his people could benefit from the inevitable arrival of the Americans by engaging in the increased trade and commerce created by the new economy. He and other tribal leaders envisioned success in a new society built on relationships of equality and mutual respect.

Those hopes were dashed when promises made in the treaties went unfulfilled, when lands were stolen from tribal peoples, when Native people were banned from the city of Seattle and longhouses burned, including Old Man House, home of Chief Seattle, here in Suquamish.

Many were killed, including Chief Leschi, leader of the Nisqually people, who was hanged by a citizen government in 1858.

Chief Seattle signed the Treaty of Point Elliott in 1855. The Treaty established the Port Madison Indian Reservation as our permanent home in exchange for the Tribe giving title to most of the Kitsap Peninsula to the U.S. government. But the federally appointed Indian agents sold much of our reserved land through the use of discriminatory federal laws. The U.S. military condemned 74 acres of our waterfront, inclusive of Old Man House, to build a military base. They never built the base, instead selling the land to a developer who subdivided into lots for vacation homes for visitors from Seattle.

Perhaps the most devastating of all was the taking of our children by force and coercion to attend distant boarding schools, where speaking our language or practicing our traditions was cruelly punished. This experience has created generational trauma that we are still addressing today.

Our ways of life are built on fishing, hunting, and gathering shellfish, and here, too, simply making a living required us to confront law enforcement and armed vigilantes attempting to prevent us from exercising our treaty rights. Tribal members were arrested, fired upon, and jailed for casting a net or digging shellfish on the beach. We have made progress since those days of conflict here in Kitsap County, as demonstrated by many of our elected leaders who recognize our Treaty rights and engage in government-to-government consultation and negotiations with us on a regular basis. Our hands go up to those elected officials. We have more work to do.

Black and Native Lives Matter

Like African-Americans, Native people have the highest rates of killing by police. So, as a group of us stood on Highway 305 last week, we were thinking about Black Lives lost and also Native Lives. We were thinking about George Floyd and also about Stonechild Chiefstick. We were thinking about Breonna Taylor, shot while she slept in her apartment in Louisville, Kentucky, and also about Suquamish Tribe descendant Jeanetta Riley, a mother of four, shot by police in 2014 in Sandpoint, Idaho, and about John T. Williams, a Nuu-chah-nulth woodcarver, shot by Seattle police in 2010. We were thinking about Manny Ellis, an African American man shot by police in Tacoma, and about Suquamish Tribal member Daniel Covarrubias, who reached for his cell phone and was shot by Tacoma police in 2015.

The brutality and inequities experienced by our people and by other communities of color divide and weaken our country.

We can do better. But real changes require more than “thoughts and prayers” for those killed and vague promises of reforms.

Real change means taking action to end the racial bias that infuses law enforcement at all levels in the United States and re-conceptualizing policing at a time when mental health challenges and domestic violence make up a large portion of the calls police are asked to respond to.

It means reforming school curriculum so the history of Native people, Black people, and other people of color is neither erased nor told only through the lens of European-Americans.

We call on all leaders – especially right here in North Kitsap — to embrace Chief Seattle’s vision that we live side-by-side, with equity, full participation, and rights for all the people of all the many cultures that make up our region.

— The Suquamish Tribal Council
Published in the Kitsap Sun

Suquamish Tribal Court slated to resume operations June 8

The Suquamish Tribal Court announced it will tentatively resume regular operations on June 8.

In an update to its Emergency Administrative Order filed May 28, the Court said the reopening could be delayed “depending on the status of the COVID-19 public health emergency.”

In the meantime, the Court  will continue to be available “to hear all matters of an urgent nature, including requests for all types of protection orders and emergency child welfare orders.”

Questions should be sent to the court clerks at suquamishcourt@suquamish.nsn.us or by calling (360) 394-8697.

You can read the full order here.

 

Seafood Distribution 6/1

Suquamish Tribal member seafood distribution coming up June 1, 10 am to 2pm, at the House of Awakened Culture.

How-to: Reduce Anxiety with the Emotional Freedom Technique

In this how-to video, Tom Axtelle, a Licensed Mental Health Counselor with the Suquamish Tribe Wellness Center, provides a practical method to help manage and reduce anxiety.

Called the Emotional Freedom Technique, this series of tapping motions may seem a little strange at first, but has been shown to help people suffering from post-traumatic stress, anxiety, and depression.

Give it a try!

Honoring Suquamish Graduates

Are you or a loved one getting ready to graduate in 2020?

There’s no way around it, this is a crazy year to graduate.

That’s why we’d like to help you celebrate. If you are a Suquamish Tribe member, descendant, or family member, or Chief Kitsap Academy senior, please fill out this short form and we’ll feature the graduate in an upcoming edition of the Suquamish News.

NOTE: If you experience a problem submitting this form, please send your information via email to: communications@suquamish.nsn.us

 

Suquamish Tribal Council Extends Limited Government Operations

For the health and safety of the Tribal community, Suquamish Tribal Council has extended temporary remote government operations until June 7, 2020.

A limited number of staff members are available to respond to urgent issues. They can be reached via telephone at the numbers below, or via email. Please call (360) 598-4334 for general questions.

You may also contact our response team by sending emails to: covid_questions@suquamish.nsn.us and check our Facebook page here. You can also check the COVID-19 Updates page on the official Suquamish Tribe website here.

The Suquamish Police Department

The Police Department lobby will be available to drop off child support payments, applications, housing payments, and other government-related paperwork. Staff and officers can also forward messages to other Tribal departments as needed.

Lobby Hours:
Mon-Fri – 8am to 4:30pm
Contact
Front Desk: (360) 598-4334
Emergency: call or text 911

Telework and On-call Services
Communications: (360) 394-7184/7102
Community Development: (360) 394-8415
Emergency Work Orders: (360) 900-7050
Emergency Utilities: (360) 710-3223
Elders Meals: (360) 394-8413
Health Benefits: (360) 394-8466
Human Resources: (360) 394-8409
Human Services: (360) 394-8465
IT Help Desk: (360) 394-8485
Finance: (360) 394-8430
Fisheries: (360) 394-8438
Tribal Child Welfare: (360) 394-8480
Tribal Court: (360) 394-8697

Wellness Center
Therapists are meeting with existing clients through phone/video sessions. A contact list of providers is available here.

Contact
Front desk: (360) 394-8558
Wellness Fax – (360) 598-1724
Emergency: call or text 911
Crises Hotline: (888) 910-0416
Chat: www.imhurting.org

8 Tips to Break Out of the COVID Funk

Boost your balance, amplify awareness, and increase well-being with these simple tricks you can try now

During all the changes, closures, and social isolation due to the COVID-19 outbreak, it is important to maintain balance and a healthy lifestyle. Stop a moment and take inventory of all the areas of your life. You may find a need to plan and act with increased intention and awareness during this time, to promote and maintain physical, mental, social, emotional, and spiritual health and well-being.

 

Here are 8 tips:

  1. Take one step at a time

It is easy to become overwhelmed, anxious, or scared when faced with extreme situations and obstacles. Focus on what you can control. Focus on what will produce feelings of joy, pride, and comfort. Stay informed, but limit your exposure to social media and the news. Focus on today, and find ways to feel productive.

 

  1. Be kind

Be supportive, forgiving, and kind to others, including when you are online. Offer thanks to important people in your life. Also – be gentle to yourself. Acknowledge your strengths. Smile.

 

  1. Be flexible

In the face of adversity and challenge, adapt. Change your plans and expectations. Look for and discover new ways of doing and being. Explore and be creative. Try something new. Start that project you’ve been thinking about for months.

 

  1. Plan ahead

If you are feeling overwhelmed because each day feels chaotic, develop a schedule. Budget your time. Set limits, expectations and boundaries for yourself and for your family. This could include things like reducing screen time, increasing sleep or exercise, or scheduling quality time to do an activity with your family or friends (in person… or online!)

 

  1. Stay positive

Don’t allow yourself to hyper-focus on the negative; think and speak in a positive way. Model this for others who are struggling. Don’t criticize others, and don’t criticize yourself.

 

  1. Take care of yourself

Don’t neglect the basics: Get plenty of sleep. Exercise regularly. Eat healthy. Drink water. Reduce or eliminate alcohol and drugs (now is a great time to quit smoking!). Pray, meditate, or journal daily. You will be better prepared and equipped to help others if you are taking care of yourself.

 

  1. Take care of others

Reach out to someone you haven’t heard from in a few days. Send an email, a text, or a Snap. Give a family member a call. Be aware of other people’s needs. Don’t hoard! – take what you need. Give.

 

  1. Relax and enjoy today

Look for the bright part of each day and give thanks. Don’t dwell on thoughts such as “I wish this was over!” Focus on what you have today, and what you can do with your time and energy. Find ways to calm down if you find your stress levels too high. Share these ideas with others. It may sound wild to say, but: enjoy this journey.

 

Jonathan Glover, LICSW, is the mental health supervisor at the Suquamish Wellness Center. If you have questions, or to request services, please call the main phone number: (360) 394-8601.